I hate mosquitoes. I hate humidity. I can't really swim, I burn about a thousand times more easily than I tan, and I happen to like wearing sweaters.
And yet, somehow, I can't help but love summer. No, not because I feel some newfound sense of freedom or have overt amounts of time to relax. I love summer for pretty much one reason: food.
That's right, farm stands and markets overflowing with so much produce that my heart races, my mouth waters, and my head starts to spin. Certain people can attest to this love I have for food; it has the power to make me giddy with excitement. Now, I'm not exactly a wizard in the kitchen, though I do make a mean chocolate cupcake. Fact is, I'm an amateur. I approach cooking and baking the way I do photography: I do what I can given my lack of skill, test things out, and hope for the best. And while the results may prompt utterances of "what is that?," every once in a while I end up with something pretty spectacular.
Case in point: the "breakfast pizza" I made on Sunday.
SO delicious! It was filling but still (felt) nice and light, with the sweetness coming mainly from the berries. The recipe was on Everyday Italian, though I modified it here and there. I'll definitely make it again, but I think it deserves a better name than "breakfast pizza"....
Further efforts on the berry front yielded a fruit cobbler. I actually used this blueberry cobbler recipe, but as I only had one cup of blueberries and had picked around a cup's worth of wild blackberries earlier in the day, I decided to switch things up a bit. In place of the third cup o' berries, I sliced up a peach.
Eaten right out the oven with vanilla ice cream makes for one satisfying dinner, let me tell you. There were definitely seconds involved.
On the savory side of things, we (mein vater and moi) used up some zucchini in a pasta dish with light cream sauce. Don't know that this is something I'd cook again -- I'd rather make zucchini pie (actually, my overall preference would be to eat zucchini pie made by somebody else! HINT HINT).
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Remember how this is supposed to be a blog about Africa? As opposed to my domestic efforts? Yeah, so do I. Thing is, I kinda sorta have to go to Africa to write about my experiences there. But it's close, less than three weeks away. And I am SO excited. I have indeed been reading many books and watching movies related to all things South African. So this week, on my honor, there WILL be a South Africa post! Not from South Africa, but at the very least ABOUT it. Until then, well -- you'll probably find me in the kitchen :)
